


Fear

by Thepencilsharpener



Category: aot, snk - Fandom
Genre: F/M, I found publishing in a single chapter better, Like, Other, Yo I made it, also they have bad mouths, and the word guts is used a few times, but Hange's no much better when it's just her and levi, but nobody's actually losing them, like when talking to each other they disactivate every filter from mind to speech, so this is about hange scaring the shit out of levi, then not scaring him anymore, this isn't fully edited yet, very few blood, violence is just tiny bit mentions, well Levi always does it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thepencilsharpener/pseuds/Thepencilsharpener
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They talk about fear once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

They talk about fear once.  
  
It’s late (when it comes to them, it’s almost always late; from this point of view, insomnia and work alcoholism seem to go hand-in-hand), Hange’s trying to make tea while going through her notes.  
  
There are only few soldiers still awake, mostly fresh new recruits; teens too horrified from their first mission to actually sleep, so they just sit at the very same tables where they used to eat with friends who now are gone, and stare into the void.  
  
They should be sleeping by now, but there is a sort of mutual agreement: they won’t interrupt the scientist’s work and she’ll pretend to be the only one around.  
  
When firm steps enter the room (way too firm to belong to a newbie), the silent group gets up and leaves. Interesting phenomenon, how even a first mission shock couldn’t erase completely the recruits’s terror for Levi.  
  
The captain looks at them with his usual frown while they leave, broom in one hand and bucket in the other, an aura of bubbles starting to form around him. 

To Hange’s eyes that makes his angry figure all the more comical, but since the young soldiers are going to bed, she figures that on them it doesn’t have the same effect.

“Not even punishing the ones who stay up too late, Levi? What a sweet man you’re becoming in the military. Usually it makes the opposite effect!”

The other one just raises an eyebrow at her, carefully putting on the floor both the bucket and the broom, then reaching for a chair.

 

“Those idiots are already lucky enough being alive, and moping  all night long won’t help keeping their asses away from a pyre.”

“You seem a grumpy concerned dad, you know that? It suits you. But your softening over the kids scares me a bit.”

“I’m too busy with this satan’s asshole of a headquarter to care about recruits who’re having their punk phase, shitty glasses. I leave for a two weeks mission, and look at whathappens. Filth everywhere.”

“Punk phase? Nah, they’re just shocked. They won’t question actual orders. But I expected at least, you know, something on the line of you blackmailing them into help you with the cleaning.”

The captain  pauses for a moment, like he’s actually considering the idea.  
“They’d do an half assed job, anyway. They can barely walk on a straight line.”

“Well, it’s not like I was in much better shape after my first mission, either.”

“You’re a fucking mess even now, who do you want to kid.”

She laughs at that, hot water threatening to spill from the teapot she’s holding.

At that the captain’s eyebrows reach an uneven depth in their frown, and – _Heaven’s sake, just gimme that_ – he charges himself with the task of making tea, sparing from a cruel destiny a fair amount of tea leaves and her messy notes too, probably. Hange lets him gladly, focusing again on her work.

For about five seconds.

“Were you scared too, Levi? After your first mission, I mean.”

“You saw me, then.”

“Avoiding the question, clean freak. Were you?”

“A bit. But I’ve seen worse stuff in the underground.”

“And how does it feel?”

“What.”

“Fear. For you. For humanity’s strongest midget.”

At that he snorts, because – _If you plan being one of those Sina fancy shrinks, four eyes_ – he’s not having any part in it.

"Oh, I know you’d miss me terribly. Anyway, it’s just pure scientific curiosity. Come on, answer!"  
  
As every Levi’s answer, though, that one doesn’t come out easily.

He takes his time, holding his cup of now ready tea _in that impossible way_ (because, when she tried, _for_ _science_ , she only managed to get her shirt _soaked_ ).

Hange knows he’s going to answer, now, though, and doesn’t push him further: she’s learned from a long time the meaning of this small amount of time, in which he strains against the choice of his words.  

  
Not that it has ever proved to be useful, because, when he finally speaks, it’s not much different from what Hange expected:

“Like you’re shitting yourself, basically.”  


* * *

  
She scares him three times.  


* * *

 

 

  
The first one, he barely knows her, but Levi’s already an infamous prodigy, even if he’s between the last ones who have joined, and all he kows, he’s learnt by himself in the underground: and it works, too, thing which makes his existence all the more  _outrageous_ for…well, for everyone.

  
Screw them, he spins and cuts and flies and holds his breath, internally imprecating and trying to stay alive.  
  
However, he must be too caught up in his mental stream on obscenities, because suddenly, something gets in his way, and the young _hero_ (big word, indeed) barely manages to avoid it, gasping in surprise.  
__  
What the actual fuck.  
  
And he turns to look at…whatever it was that nearly made end his poor attempt at a life against a tree.

Levi manages to make up a human figure, a soldier who decided to break the formation: he tries not to put too much attention on the wild fighter, to avert his gaze, to focus on the actual enemies. 

Because that’s the kind of anger driven soldier who lasts less than ten minutes in battle, and if he can avoid watching human guts spilling from their designed location, he will. 

And because trying to make reason (or to scare into obedience) people like that is pure suicide.

 

Still, in spite of every good advice that, for once he’s giving himself, he stops to check.  
  
Hearing war screams, seeing blinding sparkles of light reflected by double blades, and a confuse mass of brown hair (which even from that distance reveals the serious need of a bath), Levi goes back to his task, but distinctly feels a knot inside of him, and humanity’s strongest ( _oh how quickly stupid nicknames spread_ , he hates it) is very happy about not having been able to meet the eyes hidden behind those googles.  
  
Eventually, he learns that the crazy soldier is a messy, apparently-but-not-too-feminine-looking woman, mad scientist, or kind of. 

He’s not even too sure of what a scientist _is supposed to be, dammit._

She has quite her fame, in the survey corps.

He learns two more things about her while she presents herself enthusiastically, arm stretched: she’s apparently friendly, and, against all the possibilities, she has survived.

Not that he has any intention of ingaging into a conversation, anyway.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
The second time, it’s a bad day.  
  
  
They’ve lost so many people in their last expedition, and, while most of them have already recovered physically, there’s an anxious atmosphere, because everything _seems_ back to normal (but _what_ is normal in the scouting legion), and many seem to believe that, realizing the trick their mind has played on them only after they’ve called or looked for a friend, a guide, a lover, who, the soldiers know, can’t answer. Ever again.  
  
  
He’s going to check on how the brats are accomplishing their cleaning duties (he’s determined to work them into exhaustion, because he has no intention of staying half the night awake hearing muffled sobs), but he stops when a crashing sound from the lab reaches him.

_I’ve always told that with that mess she’s gonna trip on something and crack her skull open._

I’m not gonna scrub her brain from the floor, fuck it- the man goes to check, and the sounds go on, and he’s finally on the door.

He feels it again, a sudden constriction on his insides, an imperceptible shiver running the length of his back.

Everything is trashed and destroyed, only the notes are safe, on some shelves which managed to escape to her _shitty eyes_.

And there she is, kneeling in the middle of that mess. Hange Zoe, breath heavy, gaze lost, held down on the floor, but she heard him. Damn if she heard him.

“Fancy seeing you here, Clean Freak. Seems I got you some work for today: this way, at least, you will be able not to…not to think…”

The most feared blabbermouth of the scouting legion, stuttering like a scared recruit, giving eventually up, and settling for silence. Her eyes flash to him for a second, then go back to the mess on the ground. 

However, that second is enough for him to see her face, twisted in the hold of the two opposite lines of her scowl and her lips. While kneeling, she brings her hands, closed in fists, against her chest, and starts to shake. This time, her tears are unusually silent, and where he the type, he’d worry.

He’d worry and rush to her and handle her his tissue or fancy shit like that.

But he’s not, and instead or worrying _uselessly_ he notices that Hange must have hurt herself in her fury, because blood is pouring slowly from her hands to her shirt, resting in crimson stains against her skin.

So the shorter man slowly walks towards her, like with a wild animal, holds her firmly on her upper arms and puts her standing, then, mindful of her hands, takes the scientist’s forearm and guides her out of the lab.  
  
“Come on, you need to have someone taking care of your hands.”  


 

Eventually she ends up doing that herself.

Hange’s fully aware that if this accident was made public, she’d be completely fucked in terms of budget, since she seems so keen on destroying everything.

So, mind suddenly clear again, she asks him to lead her in her own room.

Her googles are somewhere in the lab, likely cracked, and she couldn’t go anywhere unnoticed without them, half blind, stumbling on people and with blood-stained clothes.

Levi does as asked, leading her by the arm; no one seems to notice something’s off, and they arrive smoothly to her room.

In a first moment she refuses the further help Levi’s silently offering, doesn’t even want to let him in.

He replies that it’s fine, but he has absolutely no intention of cleaning blood stains from everywhere in the scientist's room.

He picks one of the two chairs next to her desk, put it against the door to hold it open, and he’s again out of the room, just a step from the door, looking at her a bit more angry than usual, because even if his first instinctive reaction was fear, and he’d like to pretend he’s not at all worried, he is now, and the cause of that is staring at him, blood pouring on the floor.

She snorts, but her mood isn’t at all the right one for playful bickering with the short angry man, so the squad leader lets him be, and proceeds to take care of herself. Levi doesn’t show any intention of leaving.

“You can leave, now, you know. I’m almost done.”

“You’ll need help to bandage your right hand.”

 _Oh._ She hadn’t thought about it. But hell if she’s giving him the satisfaction of asking him to enter.

So the woman brings her first aid kit with her, reaches the door, and sits on the cold stones. He doesn’t spare her from an exasperated glare, but if she’s willing to piss him off again, that’s a good sign.

They spend the next twenty minutes like this, both sitting on the ground, Levi out of the room, bandaging, Hange inside, quiet. When he’s done and both of them get up, the corner of her lips are pulled upwards, while she puts everything back to place.

“Thanks, short ass.”

At that, he rolls his eyes, puts the chair away, and holds the doorknob.

“Get some sleep, Four Eyes. And don’t pull this shit ever again.”

And, with that, he’s gone. No words such as _you scared the shit out of me_ leave his mouth.

It’s not like that she hasn’t grasped what he meant, anyway.

The next morning, she comes to a perfectly tidy lab.

 

* * *

  
The third time, he’d want to smack himself right in the face for how _stupid_ he can be in a situation like this.

 

  
Something both heavy and extremely light has found place in his chest, something which makes his breath come out in loud akward short breaths, together with pleasure building up in his veins.

He tries to ignore it, but fails miserably at undoing the second button of Hange’s shirt.

She’d thought he was enjoying himself, but when his hands fumble against her buttons and eventually give up, the woman allows herself a moment of pause from the skin of his neck (they both have found themselves  quite _grateful_ for Levi’s cravat, since this...thing, whatever t is, started), to look at him.  
Glasses on her forehead, ponytail half undone, lips wet and red from kisses, cheeks flushed, breath quick like his, but for way more pleasurable reasons, she gives him a look gentle and questioning at the same time.

In response, Levi mutters something hardly understandable, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Even in normal situations, he has trouble with words.

 

But explaining things _now_ , of all times…it’s impossible.

 

Because Levi doesn’t think of himself as a man of many virtues, nor one of many vices: his desires may be akward and out of place, except for freedom and safety, but usually they don’t cloud his mind and senses.

In spite of all of this, he can’t explain for how long he’s quietly _craved_ this moment; they’ve moved at an exasperating pace, because every logical part of them screamed at their foolishness: but hey had managed to burn down logic, slowly, methodically.

And so, now, there’s no way for him to explain how he feels, how his desires seem again dark and foolish,  and how all of this doesn’t seem a good idea _at all_ , how the perspective of staying the night makes his stomach twist _._

There’s no way, for him, to explain what sex is usually in the underground, more often than not: a business, or a weapon.

There’s no way to tell her the number of rapes he’s witnessed, or how many women he has seen, destroyed by what they had to do to bring food home.

There’s no way to say that, in his general dislike for human beings, he particularly despises men, and, in some subjects more than others, that applies to himself, too.

There’s no way to explain how he fears to lose his control or her trust, and he’s stuck in his meaningless silence.  


But, in spite of her marathon-like talks, silence is not a foreign language to Hange.

She puts again an arm around him, the other grabbing the sheet, and slowly lets their bodies lie down on the bed, still not separating from each other. She slowly feels him calming down, but when he retreats slightly, just his shoulders and head, to look at her in the eyes, she’s quicker, and just shushes him with a laugh, fingertips brushing his lips.

Then they go to his nose and cheek, his ear and neck.

He falls asleep to her warm palm on the side of his face, thumb brushing his eyebrow in light strokes.

 

 _With me, you have nothing to fear._  
  
And he sorts of believes her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! First fanfic ever for me, here! Wrote this for pure fun and because I am a thirsty bastard who has pratically read the whole levihan ao3 tag, so having finished fanfics, I started to write them myself. I love these two bastards so much, I'm lost.  
> I am no writer and know that probably this is very shitty, but figured that it will make no harm and maybe someone'll like it, so I posted it here.
> 
> However, I am no native english speaker, so if want to correct my english, I'll be more than grateful ^^


End file.
